


Companion of the Ancestors

by Omegarose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka and Obi-Wan stick together after the war and raise the twins together, BAMF Ahsoka Tano, Baby Leia Organa, Baby Luke Skywalker, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Gen, Obi-Wan Kenobi Raises Leia Organa, Obi-Wan Kenobi Raises Luke Skywalker, That's Not How The Force Works (Star Wars), Time Travel, ahsoka is a predator, as in...sharp teeth and carnivorous, it's a time travel lineage au, qui-gon is a bit of a dick, she can and will kick everyone's ass, there is also help from clone troopers liberated from the chips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28931355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omegarose/pseuds/Omegarose
Summary: Ahsoka finds herself in a strange place, out of contact with Obi-Wan and alone with the twins. The Force feels like it hasn't in years, and she runs into a man who has to be an idiot for the way he's acting like a Jedi two years after Order 66.((Dooku, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka all meet each other when they're 19 years old. With the addition of the Skywalker twins and a slightly-younger (than Ahsoka remembers him) Yoda.))
Relationships: Leia Organa & Ahsoka Tano, Luke Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze
Comments: 74
Kudos: 271





	1. The Lightening

It was rare that Ahsoka was left alone with the twins. Rarer still to be left alone with them while travelling.

It was only a short time, for a short distance, of course—nothing but a disaster would lead their little group to make such a risky move, otherwise—but it was still a novelty. 

Luke was tied to her back, tucked under her heavy rear montral, asleep. He had always liked that spot. Obi-Wan had theorized it mimicked the swaddling of a blanket, in a way, with the weight and warmth pressing him close. It was for this reason that Ahsoka had taken to being the one to mostly carry him. It wasn’t worth the tears or tantrums, on most occasions, to get him to accept one of the clones or Obi-Wan. At the start it had irritated her senses of the world, unbalancing everything just the tiniest bit, but she had grown so used to it she hardly noticed the shift between having a tiny Force sensitive youngling disrupting where her montral would otherwise lie flat.

Leia was tied to her front, acting as an uncommon counter-weight. She was more alert than her brother, twisting her little body around to see around the forested moon that Ahsoka was rendezvousing with Obi-Wan on. 

Obi-Wan had a temporary camp with some of the clones they had most recently managed to free from the chip’s influence, recovering from the strain of fighting against it and then getting it removed. Rex had dropped Ahsoka and the children off five klicks away, taking his turn to hit the Empire. Though he was investigating rumors of a Jedi that had escaped from the initial purge, rather than their usual mission to disrupt supply chains and free _vod’e_ as they could.

The forest was quiet, but had enough sounds of native wildlife that it didn’t veer into unsettling. At least, it hadn’t for the first part of her journey.

As the soft sounds of nature fell away, the Force seemed to brighten in a way that demanded attention. Not what Ahsoka would call a traditional warning, but a sort of a pointed jab in the ribs. 

Ahsoka curled one arm around Leia, the other cautiously unclipping one of her ‘sabers from her belt. She couldn’t sense any other sentients around, or any intent of danger, but there was _something_ nearby and it was something urgent. Most concerningly of all, perhaps, was the way the twins didn’t seem to react at all.

Luke and Leia were exceptionally Force sensitive. More so than any Jedi that Ahsoka had ever met, aside from Yoda and their father. Paired together they easily matched that level. Though still untrained, they could be more in-tune with the shifts of the Force than she herself.

Yet Luke slept peacefully and Leia just seemed confused as to what Ahsoka was doing.

The Force was blinding in its intensity, if it were a physical thing. Seeing no one around and still sensing no danger she squeezed her eyes shut to try and fall into a walking meditation that her master had always made look so easy and Obi-Wan had long since perfected. She reached into the Force, practically demanding to know what it was trying to tell her, when the younglings both gave a jerk and started to _wail._

Ahsoka acted on instinct rather than anything in the only-slightly-less-blinding-Force when she dodged to the left, rolling to her knees and igniting her lightsaber.

At first she didn’t notice anything different that could have startled the twins, unless they had suddenly become aware of the strangeness of the Force that had so unnerved her.

And then she realized they were somewhere completely different.

It was a similar forest in appearances—same relative density, nearly the same look of the trees and plant life, same gentle topography—but it was definitely not the same place. Even as she scanned her surroundings the twins quieted down, still uneasy but less terribly frightened. The Force continued to quiet, still bright but less blinding. Almost...dare she say it... _Light._

Light in a way that it hadn’t been since she was young. Lighter than that, even. 

There was still Darkness at the edges, as there always would be, but they weren’t looming as they had been during the war, or all-consuming like they were now.

There was no sound but the buzzing of her lightsaber and the snuffling, whining cries of the two younglings. Aside from the startling Lightness of the Force it was normal again, and she couldn’t sense anything but a scattering of wildlife around her. She cautiously shut off her lightsaber and turned to comforting the children, still crouched low to the ground.

Luke was soothed with a brush of her mind and her fingers running along the side of his head. Leia was, as always, more stubborn, but calmed significantly more with cooing reassurances and a steady hand holding her close to Ahsoka’s chest. It was a struggle to keep her Force signature calm when she felt so anxious, but with the twins being so sensitive to it she had learned better control of what she projected. 

“Where are we, huh?” she murmured, more to have a steady stream of words to keep the younglings calm than for any real desire to voice her thoughts. “Somewhere I don’t think I’ve ever been. You recognize it?”

Leia babbled a few almost-words, always the conversationalist.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

With no better option Ahsoka decided to start walking, keeping the rising sun to her right. Unless there was extenuating planetary conditions, it would keep her in the same direction. All she had on her was her lightsabers and a short-range comm that wouldn’t reach further than a single planet. She didn’t have any supplies for the younglings, either, which would quickly become a problem if she didn’t secure at least some palatable food and drink.

The comm, predictably, didn’t work when she tried Obi-Wan, then Cody in the case that it was Obi-Wan’s comm that was acting up, and finally Rex despite having watched him leave the atmo of the moon she and the twins had been on only minutes ago. If she found nothing like civilization in the next hour or two she would try finding shelter and resources and hope that the others could find them. Depending on distance and how receptive Obi-Wan was in the moment, she might be able to reach out to him through a deep meditation that she would only be able to achieve if the twins were well and properly asleep.

Not all too long after she had come to this decision—long enough for Luke to fall back asleep and Leia to come to a fitful sort of rest, but not long enough that Ahsoka would have considered stopping—she sensed a Force presence nearby.

It wasn’t familiar to her, not even in the passing way that she had come to know all surviving members of the Jedi order that she knew of, but it was Light and structured in a way that all but screamed Jedi. There were so few of them left she had no difficulty familiarizing herself with them. Perhaps one that she hadn’t met before the war, who she had yet to come in contact with? Or that had yet to be drawn into the little network of Jedi and freed clones that Obi-Wan and Ahsoka had accidentally been building in the past two years?

She drew her own shields around the twins. It was likely that the other person had already sensed the younglings' blazing presences, being so near, but she could give her best attempt of keeping their high Force potential hidden. She was going to investigate, for lack of a better option, but she could still be cautious.

She took to the trees and stalked through the boughs, bending the shadows and leaves to give her better coverage. She gave a nudging suggestion for the twins to stay quiet, as they tended to respond better to the gentle encouragement than an outright mind trick.

“Hello?” a male voice called out in Basic.

He was human, and tall, wearing robes that Ahsoka immediately thought of as _Jedi_ despite the amount of civilizations that favored the similar styles. Not all that many looked _so_ similar to Jedi robes, though, nor were so recognizably plain.

The man’s face turned to the boughs, sensing her somewhere above. He was young—maybe her age—with cropped-short hair and an undeniable padawan braid. _What_ the idiot was doing with a padawan braid two years after Order 66 was a mystery. 

Though unusual, Ahsoka couldn’t sense any deception from him. The Force, still unnervingly Light, remained neutral to his presence. Perhaps even a bit welcoming, like it was telling her that he was trustworthy.

Ahsoka dropped from the trees, landing a dozen paces to his right in a low crouch, one hand on her ‘saber. She remained low in the foliage, tightly poised and ready to pounce.

He turned to her, a little startled but not hostile. He did take a step back, though, which showed at least _some_ common sense. She caught sight of a lightsaber on his belt that he didn’t reach for, but kept available for reach with the slightest shifting of his outer robes.

“Who are you?” Ahsoka demanded.

“I could ask you the same question,” the man said with an air of humor that was covering for discomfort. “I seem to have found myself lost.”

Ahsoka pulled back her lips into the type of grin that was a slightly-polite way to display her fangs without seeming _too_ hostile. “I also seem to be lost.”

“Yes, well, perhaps we can work together to remedy that little problem?”

Ahsoka huffed through her nose. “Perhaps.”

The man shifted. Some absent, ancient part of Ahsoka’s mind thought _prey._

“Do you know what planet we’re on? Last thing I knew I was on Corellia.”

“I don’t know where we are,” Ahsoka admitted. “Though I can sure as spit tell you it’s not Corellia.”

He laughed, only slightly stilted. Ahsoka allowed herself to rise to her full height—only a few inches shorter than the man—but kept the one hand at her hip.

“You’re a Jedi, then?” he asked.

That question burned something deep in her gut.

_Was she a Jedi?_

Her grandmaster would contest that she was, that she had proven and earned her rights to the title the same if not more than every other Jedi that had fought in the war. Many of the other surviving Jedi that they had come in contact with since tended to agree. Not all of them did, of course. Master Yoda grumbled about it on the rare occasion they managed to comm through the thick atmo of the planet he had sequestered himself away from.

At the very least, she had the right to the title, if she wanted it.

But did she want it? Want the identity that came with abandonment, and war, and a genocide? It had been her entire life, practically, the only exception being her first few years on Shili and her akul-hunt she had done when she was thirteen. Being a _Jedi_ came with being sent onto the battlefield at fourteen when she had always been taught that violence was the last option, and bearing witness to the thousands of Jedi that had passed into the Force, and watching the man who had sworn he would always look out for her become the rising Empire’s deadliest weapon.

“Something like that,” Ahsoka agreed. 

“Are the younglings Force sensitive?” he asked, prodding carefully at her shielding that she had wrapped around them. “Or are you just caring for them at the moment?”

Leia—perhaps having sensed the nudge, perhaps just being impatient—thrashed against her shields. Ahsoka winced and let them fall. It was more effort than it was worth upkeep them, at this point, especially for both of them.

The man’s eyes widened. “They’re both very strong in the Force. No wonder you’re taking them to the Temple.”

“The Temple?” Ahsoka asked, incredulous. He couldn’t mean-

“Yes? On Coruscant?”

He really had to be crazy, with the braid and the robes and the way he spoke of the Temple. However, if the Force truly was appearing so Light as in comparison to recent years…

She grabbed hold of her ‘saber’s hilt and all-but-snarled, “I’m going to ask you again, who are you?”

He raised his hands in hasty deference, stepping back once more. “My name is Qui-Gon Jinn.”


	2. Ashla

The togruta woman was mildly terrifying.

Qui-Gon hadn’t thought his situation could get much worse after he had quite suddenly found himself in a forest when moments before he had been on the densely populated world of Corellia. Then he had met the Force sensitive stranger.

She was tall enough to be full grown for a togruta at about six foot, though she still looked very young. He wouldn’t hesitate to put her at about his age of nineteen, had it not been for her lack of padawan beads. Togruta didn’t have the braid like humans did, but the traditions surrounding the silka beads that they wore instead dictated that they always remain on. Unless she was  _ deep _ undercover there was no reason that they should be missing.

She didn’t have the robes, either, instead wearing leggings, armored skirt panels, and a sleeveless top. If not for the pair of lightsabers he might think she could be anyone in the galaxy. Even still, had she not shown clear usage of the Force he wouldn’t doubt that she could have stolen them.

Then there were the younglings.

They were human, so not hers, and most likely twins based on age and how similar they looked. They seemed exceptionally comfortable with her, and she them. She moved like she was well-used to the younglings being strapped to her back and front, with clear care for the two. They also seemed familiar with her, and trusted her. The one on her front looked up to her for reassurance and the one on her back turned their face into her shoulder for comfort. They were also radiating power, so intensely Force sensitive in a way that Qui-Gon had seen from few other, far older, highly trained masters.

The conversation seemed to be going well despite her evasion of questions and clear caution. Or, at least, he thought it had until he inquired after the younglings. She’d dropped back into a defensive stance and demanded to know who he was. And when he gave his name she seemed to tense up even further, despite not unclipping her ‘saber.

After a moment he added, “I’m a senior padawan to the Jedi Order, if that’s what you meant?”

The stranger shook her head, jaw clenched, fingers twitching over the handle of one of her ‘sabers. “No, your name tells me enough.”

Well, that was alarming. He was certain he had never met her before, but perhaps she had somehow heard of him?

“Right…”

The youngling on her back made a shrieking noise of protest, shoving at her shoulders with pudgy hands. “No!”

The woman seemed to consciously relax, standing straighter and letting out a steadying breath with half-closed eyes. As soon as she had finished she brought her hand up to the youngling’s head, carding fingers through their blonde hair. “Sorry, little one. It’s okay, I’m okay.”

There was the clear trust and familiarity, in action. The woman had excellent shielding that had initially also been extended to cover the younglings, but the little ones projected worry and distress at her tension. 

“Who are you?” Qui-Gon asked hesitantly.

She aimed a calculating, cold look at him. “...you can call me Ashla.”

It was clearly an alias. So clearly, she was obviously letting him pick up on the fact. It wasn’t the trust that her real name would show, but it was something.

“Well, Ashla, you mentioned that you were lost? Any chance that you have an idea of which direction leads to civilization?”

Ashla frowned. “No. The same thing that happened to you happened to us. One minute we were on a moon in the Lybeya System and the next we were here.”

That had all sorts of strange implications. The Force was unusually quiet on the matter, giving little to no indication about the woman or what connected them in a way which made this strange phenomenon happen to both of them at the same time while in wildly different areas of the galaxy, only to take them here. 

“Shall we travel together?” he asked. 

Ashla seemed uncomfortable, but nodded. “It would be best. I’ve been heading north for the past half hour or so, and haven’t seen anything.”

“I’ve only travelled a little bit west,” Qui-Gon admitted. “I saw nothing, as well.”

She glanced down at the youngling on her chest. “I have no supplies with me. I can forage something but it’ll take time.”

“How long until you need to resupply?” Younglings at this age needed frequent, palatable food and could get...messy. 

Ashla must have caught his look because she gave him the beginnings of a genuine grin. “I can handle them, but they’ll need food and water at the least.”

Qui-Gon let himself steep within the currents of the Force. There was little out of the ordinary, as much as he attempted to find the direction that would be most helpful. He thought southeast might be best, the same way he knew that west would be best when he first landed. It had led him to Ashla, and despite the mystery she was most certainly connected to whatever had landed him here.

“We should head southeast,” he said.

She made a face. Less guarded, which was a good sign. “I basically came from that direction. There were no signs of anything.”

“It’s the direction the Force is urging me.”

She shut her eyes. He gave her the moment to reach out into the Force herself, verifying what he said.

“The Force isn’t telling me anything,” she said.

“I have an unusually close connection to the Living Force,” Qui-Gon admitted. It wasn’t uncommon for Jedi not to sense the same inflections of the Force that he could, especially young knights or padawans, even if they also relied closer on the Living rather than the Unifying or Cosmic Force. “It’s a faint suggestion, but a suggestion nonetheless.”

“It’s on your head when they get hungry and we haven’t found anything yet.”

“The Force will supply,” he said with all the sageness of his grandmaster, though not the mocking sentence structure that he might with Jedi he was more familiar with.

Ashla scowled, and muttered, “Sure it will.”

She jumped on the balls of her feet a little, and tugged on the straps that held the younglings to her. She stuck out her tongue at the little one on her front and blew a raspberry. The children sparked with brief but intense joy the way that only younglings could, giggling and both returning the noise, albeit messier than Ashla. Indulgently, she wiped the spit from her shoulder and off their faces.

“Ready to go?” she asked, clearly directed at them based on the raised lilting of her voice.

“Yeah!” the one on her back cheered with a bounce.

The one on her front made a complex series of babbling noises that clearly were an attempt at a full and proper response, looking incredibly serious for one so young.

“Oh wow,” Ashla said. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Qui-Gon smiled at the scene. He had no special sort of fondness for young children the way that some did, though he had no qualms with them. He did doubt that anyone would be able to see the pair of children—one so eager for travel, the other so serious about whatever it was she was trying to say—and their caretaker who was so clearly enamored with them.

Ashla met his eyes, and gestured with a jerk of her chin for him to lead their way.

They walked in relative silence—save for the occasional fidget or fuss from the younglings and directional corrections from either party—for maybe an hour before Qui-Gon noticed another Force signature ahead.

Ashla had apparently noticed the same moment he had, and had gone tense. Even tenser than she had been when he’d first met her. Her shields had wrapped around the younglings immediately, and both of her ‘sabers were in her hands.

The reaction was, perhaps, expected from how wary she clearly was, but also strange. Qui-Gon sensed no danger or warnings from the Force. It was, instead, encouraging them onwards with a gentle sort of persuasion.

“It’s impossible,” Ashla said, under her breath.

Qui-Gon thought she might be scared from her expression.

He caught a glimpse of her emotions, through a combination of the slight wavering of her shields and the intensity of the feelings. Oh, she wasn’t scared. She was  _ terrified. _

Her shields locked down even tighter as she felt the brush of his mind against hers. The younglings whined in sympathetic fear. One kicked at her sides and the other tugged at one of her montrals with both of their hands. Worryingly, she didn’t react.

“Ashla?” he asked, suddenly much more concerned for the presence. “What is it?”

“It can’t be,” she said, staring far-away with misty eyes.

The Force presence strengthened as it drew closer. Still no warning came, but a primal sort of worry arrested a deep part of him with the way that Ashla was acting. And in combination with the presence that was drawing so close, and had such raw  _ power _ that was only exponentially increasing as it neared-

_ “Ashla,”  _ he repeated, urgently.

She flinched as she came back to the moment.

“Are they dangerous?” he asked, hand on his lightsaber. They wouldn’t be able to evade at this point, even if they wanted to. The person was likely only a few moments before meeting them.

“I don’t-” She shook her head, teeth gritted. “Maybe. Don’t shoot first.”

An odd phrasing for a Jedi, but Qui-Gon could do that. Wait for the other person to show hostility before engaging, and taking point because Ashla clearly wouldn’t be in the mindset to do so.

“Hey! Who’s there?” a male voice called out, from ahead.

Ashla was looking just as stiff and unlikely to speak as Qui-Gon expected. 

“Here!” Qui-Gon called. 

A young man—human, tall, and clearly a Jedi padawan—came into view through the trees. He looked a little worse for wear, and was wearing armor pieces over his robes, with the Jedi symbols painted on the white plastoid. A long padawan braid hung over his shoulders, indicating he was a senior padawan.

He blinked at them, clearly surprised by the younglings and the odd pair that Qui-Gon and Ashla made. Likely because of the ‘sabers still in Ashla’s hands. Curiously, he didn't seem to recognize Ashla despite her knowledge of who he was. Did she even recognize him, or was it something else about him that scared her so?

“Do you know what I’m doing here?” the man asked. “I was just on Yavin 4, diverting Ventress, and then suddenly-”

“You were here? Qui-Gon guessed. He didn’t know who Ventress was, or why the man assumed he would know them, but he did recognize the situation’s similarity with his and Ashla’s.

“Yes,” the man said, with an exhausted sort of sigh.  “It’s urgent that I get back. There are thousands of troops depending on it.”

Perhaps he was one of the Jedi on a rare mission to a true and proper warzone. It might explain Qui-Gon’s lack of recognition of the man, despite his clear similarity in age, if the man’s master commonly took that sort of mission. It didn’t fully explain it but perhaps they were in different clans as younglings and the man was a few years older or younger than he looked. The same way that Qui-Gon and Ashla had never met, perhaps, if that was indeed the situation with Ashla. He was still unsure about her.

“The both of us have been trying to figure out how this strange occurrence has come to pass,” Qui-Gon said. “I’m certain that this all must be connected.”

The man squinted at him, and reached out with his Force presence. It was almost overbearing in just that simple brush, with how powerful he was. Qui-Gon didn’t even think his grandmaster matched that level of Force sensitivity. Surely he would have heard of such a powerful padawan, so close in age to himself. 

“Do I know you?” the man asked.

Qui-Gon was about to explain his similar confusion on the matter, when the man’s head whipped to the side.

“What’s he doing-c’mon, this way, my master will be able to help us,” he said, taking off.

Qui-Gon looked to Ashla, who was looking extremely overwhelmed. The younglings were anxious, strangely quiet for that level of distress at the age they were. 

“We should follow him,” she said with a slight shake to her voice. “He’s right about his master being able to help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter? So soon? Absolutely insane. Guess I'm making use of the week off.
> 
> I used Ashla because it's listed as an alias that Ahsoka went by immediately following the fall of the Republic, and referenced Yavin IV because of the 2003 Clone Wars show which I did not see, but...eh. Good enough. Anakin was preoccupied with the war in the few months before he was knighted, that's what's important.


	3. Obi-Wan and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day

Two hours ago, in a fit of earned teenage melodrama, Obi-Wan might have said that all of the problems in the galaxy had coalesced unto one simple question—or rather the lack of said question.

_ Will you stay? _

Satine hadn’t voiced it. She had implied it, sure—telling him that she wished he could stay, that she could envision a life for them together on a new and prosperous Mandalore, that she doubted a day would pass without her thinking of him—but she didn’t ask.

He knew why she hadn’t. It was the same reason he hadn’t asked her to give up what she was trying to do, during all those months spent keeping her alive, why he hadn’t asked her if she would be willing to turn her back after all was said and done. They both knew what their answers would be, and it was so terrifying a concept it had never been given a voice, not even in the moments they were alone and tucked away from everyone and everything.

They would say yes.

Obi-Wan would give up the Order and all he had struggled to achieve—all the miscommunications and failures and doubts that he had fought back against—just so that he could stay because that was  _ all _ he thought he had ever wanted.

Satine would turn away from the demands of a planet hellsbent on self destructing, be that her fault or not. Would, in essence, be disavowing all that the past year had been spent attempting to build. Would give up her one true shot of establishing her vision of peace to a people she had always loved.

They would give that up for each other, if the other only asked.

But Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how happy he would have been had it been.

The Jedi were his life. He had realized there was more to be desired, outside of it, but that didn’t mean he  _ wanted _ to leave.

On the other hand, even if he already knew it, he would have had that last bit of confirmation. That Satine loved him enough to ask, that  _ that _ was what she wanted—wanted more than anything else in the galaxy, even if it meant being selfish and hurting him in the process.

But he didn’t ask her to leave her entire life behind, just as she couldn’t ask him. 

That particular fiasco of a conversation had taken place just around two hours ago, though, and since then much more pressing issues had arisen.

Firstly, Obi-Wan was no longer on Mandalore.

Secondly, he had no idea how he had gotten here, or even where  _ here _ was.

He was in a forest, of some sort, and the sliver of a moon he could see in the morning sky was enough to tell him he was likely on a planetary body. There was nothing else immediately noteworthy about it, aside from its general tepid weather and the lack of anything around him indicating civilization. There weren’t even tracks, or a disturbance from a ship landing.

As for how he had arrived there, it was as if he had simply been teleported from where he stood. The Force had gone blindingly bright and when he had blinked the residual spots from his vision, so to speak, he had found himself undoubtedly far from the arid Mandalore.

After the first preliminary scan of his environment, Obi-Wan had decided to meditate. He was sure that his master would have noticed, by now, given how Obi-Wan had been heading to meet him when the event had occurred, and contacting him seemed to be the best course of action.

Or it would have been, had he just been able to focus.

Meditation hadn’t come easy to him, in his younger years, but he had gotten better at it with age and experience. Meditating in the middle of essentially a warzone allowed for relatively easy meditation all around.

But his mind kept circling back on Satine. Of the way she watched him leaving, her expression filled with such pain...the sad, bitter, encouraging smile she offered him as he glanced over his shoulder for the last time... _ the _ question that lay unspoken in the air like something too dangerous to provoke but too tempting not to desire.

He could see himself being happy as the Duchess’s consort.  _ Really, truly happy. _ He could also see himself beginning to despise the life he had built there, too. Not Satine, never Satine, but the court and the conflict and the  _ lack _ of everything Jedi.

He needed to calm his mind, to reach out to his master and figure out what was happening, but-

_ Hells,  _ the way she had sounded when she told him that she wanted him to stay, and the way his throat had closed up as he had tried to say something in return. But he hadn’t known if he was going to ask her to run away with him, or if he was going to say that he wanted to stay, or if he would just straight up break down and cry—so all he had managed was a choked  _ “I’ll be leaving soon.” _

Normally this was the type of thing that could be dealt with through meditation, but all Obi-Wan could do was dwell. It was unbecoming of a senior padawan, especially since he was in a potentially serious situation.

It took almost two hours of failed meditation before a distraction came in the form of approaching Force signatures.

It took him a moment to realize that there were only three presences with how brightly one of them shone. So bright and rich in Force potential that he couldn’t even get a read on whether they were Jedi or not. The other two were, however, blatantly Jedi-trained with the type of shielding and general structure he could sense off them.

He stood from the ground, feeling stupidly self-conscious in the threadbare robes he had spent the vast majority of the past year in for all of one fleeting moment. That didn’t matter, though, especially not to other Jedi and not in a situation such as his, so he pushed it out of his mind. At least he was still capable of doing so, even if the larger emotions surrounding Satine refused to be dislodged.

The people drew near enough that Obi-Wan began to hear them making their way through the underbrush. They were moving quickly, just below what he might qualify as a run. He stood with his hands in his sleeves—a quarter inch shorter than they should be, as in spite of the limited rations he had grown a little since he had received the robe—and waited.

A tall man in armor and Jedi robes was the first to appear. He had hair short, as most human padawans did, alongside a long padawan braid. He  _ looked _ around Obi-Wan’s age, though he was certain that he had never seen him in-temple before. 

Two more people—another human man and a togruta woman, Obi-Wan was pretty sure from a glance—came behind the first man but he had begun speaking before Obi-Wan could properly look.

_ “Obi-Wan?” _ he exclaimed, mouth gaping in shock.

“I’m sorry, have we...met before?” Obi-Wan asked. Anxiety was beginning to build. The Force was silent, but this stranger was odd and clearly knew more than he did and he very much disliked being at the disadvantage.

“Oh, kriff,” the woman muttered. She had two human younglings tied to her, interestingly enough, one on her back and the other on her front. She didn’t look like a Jedi, despite the pair of ‘sabers on her belt, either, and the children were oddly absent in the Force.

“Ashla, you clearly know more than you’ve told.  _ What _ is going on?” the second man asked the woman.

Obi-Wan had to stare. That man was—though younger and with a padawan braid—clearly his master. 

“I-” the woman—Ashla—began. 

“...Qui-Gon?” he asked, feeling as though the floor had dropped out on him. This was so much bigger than spontaneous transportation. Bigger than a single system, or people, or person—no matter how caught up in her he still was. 

The younger version of his master looked him up and down without recognition. “Yes?”

_ “Qui-Gon!?” _ the first man demanded, spinning at his heel to face him. “But-what in the karking Sith hells-”

Obi-Wan was well and truly confused, now. This man knew both him and Qui-Gon, despite not recognizing Qui-Gon until Obi-Wan had called him his name. Qui-Gon didn’t recognize Obi-Wan, nor the man if the lack of introductions were indication enough. The woman was the only wildcard—her and the children she carried.

“...Ashla?” Qui-Gon asked, again, and all three of their attention were drawn to her.

She seemed to be indecisive, a hand coming up to protectively cradle the child easiest in reach. “I-alright. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do recognize everyone here. My real name is Ahsoka Tano.”

The as-of-yet-named man examined her with a mix of confusion and suspicion. “I think I...but the Ahsoka I know of is only an initiate.”

The woman took a deep breath, and gave a sharp nod. “That is the root of the problem, yes. You three are all in my direct lineage.”

Direct lineage...meaning she had been trained by one of them. And if Obi-Wan had been trained by Qui-Gon it was likely that  _ he _ had been the one to train the other man.

Though truly a revelation with wild potential, all Obi-Wan could think in the moment was  _ that doesn’t explain the younglings. _

Luckily—or maybe unluckily, once he properly opened his mouth and the implications began to set in—his future padawan asked, “So, spontaneous time travel? One of you tripping an old artifact? The Sith?”

_ The Sith???? _

It had to be an expression, as the Sith had been gone for hundreds of years. It was still an alarming statement. In Obi-Wan’s experience, Dark-Siders were bad enough without proper teachings and training within those arts.

The man barreled one without giving pause. “What would have pulled us here—were any of you on this planet before whatever-the-kriff happened?”

“Slow down,” Ahsoka said, with an air of familiar exasperation. The moment that she spoke she seemed to flinch, in the tiniest of manners, almost like she hadn’t meant to be that casual. An easy enough mistake for a padawan confronted with their much-younger master, perhaps. “They don’t know you are yet, and Ma...Qui-Gon doesn’t know either of you.”

The man seemed to hold back a scowl. “Right, I’m Anakin Skywalker. My master is Obi-Wan Kenobi, which is obviously you. He was trained by Master Qui-Gon.”

Obi-Wan nodded in agreement, stiffly. He disliked the way that words were put into his mouth, even if it was quicker. It was the principle of the matter.

“I...see,” Qui-Gon said. He had the look that Obi-Wan had come to despise. It tended to mean that he was either about to dump another helpless lifeform on Obi-Wan to take care of and was figuring out how to tell him tactfully or was contemplating something deeply and genuinely concerning. The overlap made it difficult to gauge his master’s emotions, and the situation at large, most often, though Obi-Wan would safely bet this was the latter.

“I was kind of in the middle of something, though, so if we could figure out what’s going on before anything bad happens to my troops I would be grateful,” Anakin said, clearly impatient.

“I don’t think that’s how time travel works,” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin rolled his eyes. “For all we know, it could.”

“It could,” he agreed. It was unlikely but definitely not impossible.

The conversation suddenly turned awkward, like Anakin had been expecting him to say something else, or something more. Who knows what type of dynamic they had worked up to in his future, with at least half a decade or more of training. 

“If it is our... _ my _ lineage having been brought together, and all at roughly the same age,” Qui-Gon began. “I do have to ask, why are the younglings here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not know what I'm doing banging these out so fast. Anyways, I crack myself up with the sheer dramatics at the beginning. Trust me, Obi-Wan will carry this attitude mostly throughout the rest of this "situation". It's fair enough, but it's also funny as hell.


	4. Biscuits

Ahsoka faced the three men in front of her. Her master and her grandmaster and her great grandmaster who she had never even met.

They had come to accept that they had all time travelled, as she had told them. It was only Qui-Gon who didn’t have proof, afterall. Them knowing was already uncomfortable for her, especially when facing a younger Anakin. She wasn’t in control like she so desperately needed to be, given everything that happened—had happened, would happen. She needed to protect herself, and her grandmaster from her own time, and the other Jedi who had managed to survive, and the clones they were freeing, and the two precious little younglings she was carrying that everyone was  _ staring _ at.

“I was carrying them when I was transported here,” she explained, shortly, holding Leia close and feeling Luke grasp at her shoulder as he picked up on her unease.

“That doesn’t explain everything,” Qui-Gon pushed. “Your clothes, your lack of padawan beads, the clear familiarity of these younglings-”

“Mind your business,” Ahsoka snapped, teeth bared just enough to be vaguely threatening. She liked him better when he was still uneasy around her.

“Yeah, mind your own business,” Anakin agreed. “There could be many explanations for all of that, and at the very least you shouldn’t be criticizing  _ clothing.” _

Ahsoka could barely breathe, for a moment. How familiar it was for her master to defend her from other Jedi, whenever they inevitably expressed their disapproval. How familiar his staunch belief that everyone should be allowed to dress as they wanted, borne from being friends with Aayla Secura and growing up in the environment he had. Her own preferred dress had been criticized frequently enough, from places of concern and disapproval both, and Anakin had always been the first person to tell them to leave her alone.

“Soka?” Leia asked, head tilted up and gaze piercing.

“It’s alright, little one,” Ahsoka said, carding her fingers through the girl’s hair.

Leia didn’t seem to agree, shoving at Ahsoka through the Force. Luke joined in half a moment later, when he realized what his sister was doing. They were powerful in the Force, certifiable battering rams despite their inelegant attempts at getting through her layers of shielding. Had she been less tired, the twins less insistent, and her footing more secure within this strangely Light feeling Force, her outer layers of shielding wouldn’t have shattered the way they did. As it was, her knees nearly gave out and her shielding over the twins completely dissolved.

Obi-Wan and Anakin stared with renewed curiosity. Undoubtedly in reaction to the shielding trick and the sheer size of the Force presence that Luke and Leia possessed.

“That was  _ rude,” _ she scolded. Luckily she had practice pretending as if she was fine when it felt as if her legs had been swept from under her. It was a product of spending the past two years on run from the Empire and the preceding three on a series of battlefields.

“Feel bad,” Luke said.

“Do I, now?” she asked softly, almost absently.

She wondered how much of her emotions the twins were picking up on. She was obviously stressed at the situation, terrified of what her slipping up might mean in either her own timeline or perhaps the new ones that branched from here, and in all sorts of turmoil at the sight of Anakin. His hair was still short and spiky, with his padawan braid trailing long over his shoulder, but he looked almost exactly like the man she had known and loved and been betrayed by. Her brother, lost to his own emotions and the slow manipulations of the most powerful man in the galaxy. Luke and Leia’s father, who would ideally never know that they were Padmé’s children.

“They’re so bright…” Anakin said, focusing in on the twins in a way that immediately made a spike of fear strike through Ahsoka’s chest. Anakin had a way of looking into someone’s soul, if he wanted, so powerful he was in the Force. 

“We’ve been travelling for a few hours,” she said, wrapping the twins in a thin layer of shielding that was hopefully enough to fog whatever it was Anakin might perceive and be damning. “Unless you find it urgent to move, I’d prefer to set them down for a bit.”

Anakin finally looked away from her, glancing between Qui-Gon and where Obi-Wan stood some fifteen feet away. In turn, Obi-Wan’s gaze bounced between all three of them, and Qui-Gon looked rather alarmed to be the main focus of attention for a handful of seconds.

“Great,” Ahsoka said, making the decision before the awkwardness could drag on.

She found a shady spot at the edge of the little clearing that had a patch of mossy grass that would be rather soft to sit on and made quick work of untying Leia from her front. The little girl surveyed her surroundings and the three strangers with great suspicion in the time it took for Ahsoka to untie Luke, and then she was off exploring. Ahsoka sank to the ground with a soft sigh and, predictably, Luke immediately climbed into her lap.

The men had yet to only awkwardly shift around, unsure about what the correct behavior would be at the moment. That was until Leia marched right up to Obi-Wan, and peered up at him with open curiosity.

“Um...hello?” Obi-Wan greeted. 

_ Force,  _ but Ahsoka had forgotten how awkward her grandmaster was around younglings before he had taken to raising the twins. Especially one as intense as Leia was, prodding at him through the Force and staring at him like that.

Leia scowled, apparently unhappy with what she found and toddled to investigate a scattering of sticks.

“What was…” Obi-Wan asked, looking at Ahsoka.

Ahsoka had a moment of internal debate. Telling everyone that it was because Leia recognized at least some familiarity in Obi-Wan's Force presences would mean telling them that Obi-Wan survived that long. It couldn’t backfire all that much, she figured, and it wasn’t strange in the slightest that the younglings could be familiar with her grandmaster if they were so familiar with her. Still, it could reveal enough about what she and Obi-Wan had been doing post-war, and with Anakin there…

She shrugged, with an innocent enough expression.

“...right,” Obi-Wan muttered.

“You mentioned you needed some supplies?” Qui-Gon asked, following her example to sink down to the ground. Obi-Wan followed, almost immediately, and Anakin sat after another moment.

“They’re already getting hungry,” Ahsoka agreed, poking at Luke’s belly as she did. He wiggled, kicking his feet into the ground and shoving back into her chest. 

Leia lost interest in the pile of sticks she was examining and began to wander away. Or, to most it might look like she was wandering. Ahsoka knew her well enough to know that she was trying to slip away to find something  _ interesting. _ Most likely some mud to fall into or something dirty to taste test. Ahsoka would’ve called out Leia’s name in reprimand if she didn’t still intend to keep their names from Anakin.

Instead, she reached out through the Force and lifted the girl a few inches from the ground and pulled her closer to the odd little circle the four adults had made. “Stay close,” she instructed. Leia looked in her direction just long enough for Ahsoka to know that she understood.

“I have a few ration bars, if they can eat them,” Obi-Wan offered, after searching his pockets.

A bit of Ahsoka’s anxiety unknotted. She would be able to forage something, that she was confident enough in, but it would take time. “Thank you.”

She gave Luke a nudge. “Little one, can you grab them?”

She pointed at the three packets in Obi-Wan’s hands, and Luke reached out both his hands. His fingers flexed like he was physically grabbing them as he reached through the Force. It took a minute, but he managed to wobble the packets through the air and deposit them into his lap.

“Good job!” she praised, kissing his forehead when he tilted his head up to grin at her.

“He has great control for his age,” Qui-Gon noted.

Ahsoka shrugged, again, as she busied herself tearing open one of the packets. Luke had more one-on-one attention from her and Obi-Wan—or rather, one-on-two since Leia was almost always there. They’d also been able to work with them since the very day they were born, and they were incredibly Force Sensitive, which helped.

“Oh,  _ Force,” _ she said, more to herself as she pulled out the ration biscuit out of the wrapper. “I forget these would be the good ones.”

“You call that good?” Obi-Wan asked, incredulously. 

Rations were all terrible, of course, but- “Trust me, the quality goes  _ way _ down in my time. I could actually comfortably digest this.”

“All standard rations are made for the majority of species to comfortably digest?” Qui-Gon said, phrased more as a question.

“They’ve been going for cheapness and mass efficiency since-” Anakin paused in his explanation, trying to make eye contact with Ahsoka, surely to confirm that revealing such an important and galaxy-altering event is something they should be careful about.

“Since the war began,” she said, with the slightest nods in his direction. The war was a fixed event, or at least it felt like it was. The Sith had been manipulating the galaxy for generations—had manipulated the  _ Jedi _ for generations—and she didn’t have the faintest idea as to how to stop it. At most it might allow them time to prepare, if that’s how this time travelling worked. She’d only heard brief snatches of theory over the years, and didn’t know what the effects might be, thus her caution.

“A war?” Qui-Gon said, looking much less concerned than Ahsoka thought he should. “I’m assuming it must be at least a few systems to cause such a shift in ration bar production.”

Anakin and Ahsoka both laughed, the same sardonic, incredulous huff. She refused to look at him as she felt his startle at the identical gesture, too busy continuing to laugh—veering on manic. 

_ A few systems, _ oh how tame. Even the war itself was better than what came after. At it’s worst many in the Core and even parts of the Mid-Rim only felt its effects through the HoloNet. In the depth of Coruscant there were whole swathes of people that didn’t even  _ know _ there was a war and could have cared less. But the Empire...the Empire had its teeth _everywhere._

She was nearly crying when Leia all-but collided with her side, Luke whining at her. Within the moment she pulled herself out of the spiral, with ease borne of much practice.

“It’s more than a few systems,” she said, looking up and seeing all three men looking at her with concern mixed with fear. Anakin of grim acknowledgment of how it would only get worse in his timeline, Obi-Wan of war-veteran weariness, Qui-Gon of dawning apprehension.

“...how big…?” Qui-Gon asked, trailing off before he could finish.

“Ahsoka clutched the ration biscuit in one hand, wrapping her arms around the solid presences of the two younglings that were  _ here _ and  _ safe _ despite  _ everything- _

“The entirety of the Republic,” she said, voice dull. “But in practice most of the galaxy.”

Obi-Wan buried his face in his hands. Ahsoka didn’t know exactly from what situation he’d come, but if he was roughly her age it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume he was or had recently been on Mandalore. Either way, she knew of his time on Melida/Daan even if it wasn’t in much detail. That wasn’t even considering the unfair share of other violence he’d been witness to over his padawanship—at least for the time he had been a padawan. Ahsoka knew she had seen and participated in more, as is the nature of such all-consuming war and the all-encompassing loss that came after.

“Of course it would only get worse,” Anakin muttered. He looked...well, he looked as he did after those long and grueling campaigns that had cost more lives than they had any right to. Furious and the injustices of the galaxy, miserable from the constant  _ loss _ he felt as soldiers died, ramped up more than any other Jedi, and much too exhausted to do anything about any of it.

Ahsoka couldn’t help herself when she said, “It’s the safest zone where the true danger lies.”

She occupied herself with figuring out the logistics of feeding the ration bar to the twins to avoid answering any further questions. It was a tough biscuit, but the twins could occupy themselves with chewing on it and they would undoubtedly manage to eat at least some of it. Since they were hungry now she would need to help them, though.

She bit off a corner of the ration biscuit, held it in her mouth just long enough for it to begin to soften, then offered it to Leia. Leia happily chewed it, sitting in the moss beside Ahsoka. Ahsoka continued the process, in turn, for Luke.

A few minutes passed in relative silence as she fed the younglings, when she noticed Qui-Gon failing to mask his expression.

“You got any soft snacks you didn’t tell me about?” she asked, grinning. Ahsoka hardly minded this after diapers and spit up, and it wasn’t as if the twins cared.

“I can’t say I do,” he said.

There was silence, again, for a short while. It was Anakin who broke it, ever impatient. Ahsoka never had any doubts of where Leia got it from.

“I still don’t understand  _ why _ we’re here,” he said. “The Force always has a reason for things like this, or at the very least some sort of cataclysm.”

“I was on a completely different planet as here,” Obi-Wan said, confirming the suspicion that Ahsoka had that it wasn’t him that had sparked any sort of chain reaction.

“As were all of us,” Qui-Gon said.

“...it’s possible there’s someone else involved,” Ahsoka hazarded, despising the implications of what she was about to say. “Someone else in our lineage.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think! I respond to every comment, they help me come up with more nuanced ideas and spur me to write more!


End file.
